Played a show with a four-piece avant garde jazz band in Palmer, Alaska, down the road from Sarah Palin's house. Honky-to-the-flippin-tonk ... They had a charbroiler on the dance floor so you could grill your own steaks as you two-stepped. Te drummer proceeded to get hammered...we began. CLEARLY-not too many fans of ours in the audience. In fact, NO fans is much more accurate. We run through two tunes...owner lady comes up and informs us, in no certain terms, that her joint requires something different than what we're laying down. I, being the bass player and having the squarest head in the band, agree readily. But guitar guy-ohh, guitar guy! -starts reading the lady the riot act about how if she just lets the audience hear out what we've got, they're going to love it, no problem. She huffs off. Another song creeps by, the sweat beads up sticky and warm. Song ends...drummer starts giggling, flips off the crowd, utters a very loud term in relation to his hand gesture and falls over backward. Second warning from management. Guitarist says okay, okay, we'll work with you. We start up a maudlin, instrumentai Wind Cries Mary. "OK, that's it," says manager lady. Here's sixty bucks for gas, go home, etcetcetc. Meanwhile, the locals........I have never packed so quickly, Tetris on level 10 for sure. Meanwhile, self-righteous, indignant guitarist is approaching random patrons in the parking lot going "hey, don't even bother going in there, they don't have any appreciation for good music..." as I get ready to hop in the truck without him.

JUST AS WE LEFT- the mob came out, cowboy hats and boots and what all else. Seriously, movie-close. And off we drove, on a chilly November eve...

I once played w Green Jello. Not in that band but same night. The singer was drinking blood out of a severed head. Of course it wasn't real but it looked real. I think the blood was real.
Crash Worship frightened me a little--a lot of firecrackers in the dark & fire extinguishers solos (instead of guitar solo?) with heavy parade of tribal marching drums. Think--"Chip Away" Jane's Addiction but all the time. Def not top40 stuff.
Kaspar Brotzmann Massacre is scary without being scary. Just super dark.

The first show I played with my current cover band, a fight broke out at the bar which resulted in one of the belligerents going out to his truck and grabbing a handgun. Cops were called, bar closed early, and the band went to Del Taco.

a hardcore punk band I played in years ago played a show at a Neo-Nazi Skinhead house show. When we said yes to the gig, we did not realize where we were playing. We got there, and the guy running the show said: "After your first song, if they are "Sieg-Hieling", you are good to go. If you get hit with beer bottles and pool balls, you know they don't like you"

...not to be offensive, but I was never so glad to see that stupid sign in my life after that song...

we were actually asked to come back, but graciously bowed out of those gigs. About three weeks later the house was fire bombed and burned to the ground. 2 Skins died and many others there were hurt

a hardcore punk band I played in years ago played a show at a Neo-Nazi Skinhead house show. When we said yes to the gig, we did not realize where we were playing. We got there, and the guy running the show said: "After your first song, if they are "Sieg-Hieling", you are good to go. If you get hit with beer bottles and pool balls, you know they don't like you"

...not to be offensive, but I was never so glad to see that stupid sign in my life after that song...

we were actually asked to come back, but graciously bowed out of those gigs. About three weeks later the house was fire bombed and burned to the ground. 2 Skins died and many others there were hurt

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Well good thing you had a heads up and didn't cover "nazi punks **** off".

I'm from a small town and one of my first shows in Vancouver was at this place on East Hasteings (rough part of town) can't remember what it was called but we played in this dingy basement that reminded me of the movie Saw and about a year ago I was looking for where we were playing on a street full of prostitutes and they all thought I was scoping them out it was kind of funny/scary.

about a month ago i played a gig in the wonderful city of Philadelphia(not that wonderful at all) and shared the bill with an interesting goth electric funeral music type band. two keyboardists (one of which who was bald but looked like he had hair due to the tattoos on his head, and a female guitarist vocals also of the scary variety. Anywho they were playing some funeral sounding music and didnt like their sound so they verbally assaulted the sound guy then when informed about running over their set time the singer replied to the promoter words my family would disown me for. so the sound guy then dropped all the levels causing the lead singer goth chick to walk over to the soung guy and topple his sound board to the floor a $3,500 sound board. and i thought the woman spinning on the couch due to a certain drug was going to be the kicker of the night.{}

The year was 1976. We were a Rock and Roll band touring the US. We played mostly on the two coasts and usually drove non-stop from one to the other. We all had really long hair, bell bottoms, boots, black turtle-necks and leather jackets. The management (in LA) booked us into a venue in Lincoln Nebraska. We get there and there were posters announcing the best "Elvis" act you could ever dream of. We were definitely not even close to Elvis. The venue manager took one look at us and told us "don't even unpack that **** you hippie homos".
Had we set up and played I might not be around to tell the story.

The year was 1976. We were a Rock and Roll band touring the US. We played mostly on the two coasts and usually drove non-stop from one to the other. We all had really long hair, bell bottoms, boots, black turtle-necks and leather jackets. The management (in LA) booked us into a venue in Lincoln Nebraska. We get there and there were posters announcing the best "Elvis" act you could ever dream of. We were definitely not even close to Elvis. The venue manager took one look at us and told us "don't even unpack that **** you hippie homos".
Had we set up and played I might not be around to tell the story.

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I was a "hippie homo" right through into the mid eighties, and then I got a haircut, and started wearing "current" clothes, in order to get better employment. I was at a gas station, and the car I was driving had the fuel door on the right side, so I had to pull up the pump "backwards." Some guy was cussing me out, and I noticed I had graduated from "hippie homo" to "yuppie homo."

My first real bar gig (spring of 2000 I think). This bar is located on a street full of bars, last day of exams at the university, and last call was about 15 mins gone. So the street is packed, just madness. It's just after 3am, the guitar/vocalist and myself are standing outside the club having a smoke with our gear just getting ready to leave when a fight starts just up the street. There's about 30 people in this tangle. It was kind of like on cartoons when the dust cloud with arms and legs is moving around and sucks whatever is close by into it. So at one point this fella hauls back to punch another guy. A girl gets in between right at that moment saying "stop fighting!" and just gets clobbered. Down like a sack of spuds. Someone gets a bottle smashed over their face and the place just goes up then. There were people losing their sneakers, bodies going everywhere. We were watching all of this (took like 30 seconds) and realized that the mob was coming right at us. We were like "Uh, let's get the **** out of here." 5 seconds more and we would have been toast. Seen other craziness there but that one was the biggest pile of crazy.

Did a benefit (free mind you) to raise money to bury some guy that overdosed and left 5 kids... right in the middle of maybe our 5th song his grandmother comes up waving her hands, we stop playing and she yells "If'n you'll ain't gonna play country then just shut the F%&# up!" We packed up and left, the other bands that were there didn't play country either, I don't know what they did...

About 1981 I was in a new wave cover band. Our first gig was set up by the gui****, and we show up to find out it was a kegger in a garage, for the local Ghost Riders biker club. About halfway through the first set, a big mean mofo comes up and demands we play some Judas Priest, or he'll rip off our arms and beat us with them....Luckily we knew some, and from there it was smooth sailing....

sheesh....about 10 -12 years ago, playing in Belfast, Ireland for the first time, and all was going well, set was going off, right as we finished, heard some screeching tires and heard a loud BANG like someone blew something up.....we all pounded our drinks, went outside, and sure enough the bar RIGHT NEXT DOOR had someone drive through their window with some explosives...a real Irish Car Bomb. I was freaking out, thinking we yanks were next. Locals told us not to worry because the owner of the blown up joint was involved with some shady dealings with the IRA. I was like, yeah, don't worry about it, OK, so just drank the night away.

It was a dark and rainy Halloween and I was playing a party at the home of a well-to-do client. They were a rather macabre couple who had decorated their lavish home to the teeth and their costumes, Dracula and his bride, were a little too realistic.

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The party was a big success and everyone was having a great time when, at the front door, everyone heard a loud THUMP... CLOMP... THUMP... CLOMP! As everyone turned toward the front door, it exploded and this huge coffin came ambling in from the dark. It moved on its own as if it was either driven by something inside or it was alive itself.

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The few in the crowd that didn't scatter tried thowing chairs and other furniture at it to stop it. They just splintered like so much kindling. Then I realized it was headed straight for the band! The rest of the band took off and jumped out of the nearest window.
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I ran but realized that the coffin was chasing me! THUMP... CLOMP... THUMP... CLOMP!! It blocked my escape so I ran down the long hallway. The hallway was decorated with medieval weapons so I threw axes, maces, swords, and hammers at the coffin but they would either bounce off or shatter. Nothing would stop this coffin.

I was running out of hallway and weapons so I headed up the large staircase. That didn't stop the coffin! THUMP... CLOMP... THUMP... CLOMP!! It bounced right up the staircase still on its way to crush me or take me away. Whatever its evil plans were, I did not want to be part of them.

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Upstairs I looked for the heaviest door I could find, ran in, and locked it. It was the bathroom. Within seconds I could hear the coffin banging against the door. I knew it wouldn't last long. Nothing was going to stop the coffin. Desperately I was looking for anything to use against it. I opened all the drawers and cabinets.

Just as the door gave way and the coffin lunged toward me, my hand grasped a bottle of cough syrup. I heaved it at the coffin and it shattered against its wood, soaking it with cough medicine.